XXIV. TOM BOWCOCK--PITMAN 195

XXV. PREPARING FOR ACTION 201

XXVI. THE FIRST BOMBARDMENT OF LONDON 208

XXVII. LENNARD'S ULTIMATUM 215

XXVIII. CONCERNING ASTRONOMY AND OYSTERS 223

XXIX. THE LION WAKES 231

XXX. MR PARMENTER SAYS 239

XXXI. JOHN CASTELLAN'S THREAT 247

XXXII. A VIGIL IN THE NIGHT 254

XXXIII. MR PARMENTER RETURNS 261

XXXIV. THE "AURIOLE" 268

XXXV. THE "AURIOLE" HOISTS THE WHITE ENSIGN 273

XXXVI. A PARLEY AT ALDERSHOT 281

XXXVII. THE VERDICT OF SCIENCE 288

XXXVIII. WAITING FOR DOOM 295

XXXIX. THE LAST FIGHT 298

EPILOGUE--"AND ON EARTH, PEACE!" 305

THE WORLD PERIL OF 1910

PROLOGUE

A RACE FOR A WOMAN

In Clifden, the chief coast town of Connemara, there is a house at the
end of a triangle which the two streets of the town form, the front
windows of which look straight down the beautiful harbour and bay, whose
waters stretch out beyond the islands which are scattered along the
coast and, with the many submerged reefs, make the entrance so
difficult.

In the first-floor double-windowed room of this house, furnished as a
bed-sitting room, there was a man sitting at a writing-table--not an
ordinary writing-table, but one the dimensions of which were more suited
to the needs of an architect or an engineer than to those of a writer.
In the middle of the table was a large drawing-desk, and on it was
pinned a sheet of cartridge paper, which was almost covered with
portions of designs.

In one corner there was what might be the conception of an engine
designed for a destroyer or a submarine. In another corner there was a
sketch of something that looked like a lighthouse, and over against this
the design of what might have been a lantern. The top left-hand corner
of the sheet was merely a blur of curved lines and shadings and
cross-lines, running at a hundred different angles which no one, save
the man who had drawn them, could understand the meaning of.

In the middle of the sheet there was a very carefully-outlined drawing
in hard pencil of a craft